Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging hierarchies (was: RFC - lake)
On Jan 12, 2008 2:13 PM, Frederik Ramm [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, The world has an infinite diversity and we can't go inventing new tag combinations for all of them. We need to think hierarchically, start with the real defining characteristics: land/sea/road/rail/etc and use subtags for the finegrained stuff. While this is true, it would not be necessary to stuff the hierarchy into the tagging scheme. Suppose you say something like this (just an example, not meant as a suggestion for real-world use): 1st level: natural=water 2nd: water=standing (as opposed to flowing) 3nd: standing_water=lake (as opposed to puddle, reservoir...) I'm not sure that's the kind of hierarchy I meant, but I think there should be a top-level and stuff under that. A base-type + properties. I'm looking at it from the point of view of a tagger. As far as I'm concerned the difference between a dam and a reservoir is just a name and should be reflected in the name tag. Let's say I'm looking at a satellite image and I see a body of water. Is it a lake/reservoir/dam/blah? I don't know. Yet the proposed scheme forces me to choose one with a 2/3 chance of being wrong. Maybe its a type that has no translation in English, then I'm really SOL. I suppose what I'm contesting is the statement that natural=water is deprecated. It covers all the impoartant properties needed for 99% of users. If somebody cares about details they can add them but I object to me being forced to care. Have a nice day, -- Martijn van Oosterhout [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://svana.org/kleptog/ ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging hierarchies (was: RFC - lake)
Hi, It should be possible to be vague about something when tagging it. There are several vague tags that I really like and use frequently (natural=water, natural=grass being my two favorites) No problem with that at all. (Myself, I also use landuse=residential for from the low-res sat image I can see there must be people living there.) I'm not saying that natural=water should be deprecated. I'm just saying that if someone wants to introduce a tagging for lakes or other *special* kinds of water, then there is no technical requirement to tag everything that is tagged with the new lake tag (say, water=lake) as natural=water *also*, because the fact that water=lake implies natural=water could be stored externally. Obviously the option of vague tagging must remain, otherwise the lake tag would have to go once the biologists start differentiating between various types of lakes, and in the end we'd end up with a system where nobody can tag anything unless he's one of the world's three experts. Surface=asphalt you say, hm? Let's take a sample and ship it to the laboratory... Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ## N49°00.09' E008°23.33' ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging hierarchies (was: RFC - lake)
I'm not saying that natural=water should be deprecated. I'm just saying that if someone wants to introduce a tagging for lakes or other *special* kinds of water, then there is no technical requirement to tag everything that is tagged with the new lake tag (say, water=lake) as natural=water *also*, because the fact that water=lake implies natural=water could be stored externally. No, that's the wrong approach. Do not break existing software (in this case renderers). For the time being, you also must tag every water area as natural=water. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging hierarchies (was: RFC - lake)
Hi, I'm not saying that natural=water should be deprecated. I'm just saying that if someone wants to introduce a tagging for lakes or other *special* kinds of water, then there is no technical requirement to tag everything that is tagged with the new lake tag (say, water=lake) as natural=water *also*, because the fact that water=lake implies natural=water could be stored externally. No, that's the wrong approach. Care to elaborate? Do not break existing software (in this case renderers). For the time being, you also must tag every water area as natural=water. It's not like I was suggesting to make a change *now*. I just objected to the notion that for the sake of programs processing OSM data, every single object should carry with it a full hierarchy, instead of making that hierarchy available and one central source. (This is a crib barn, which in case you didn't know dear renderer, is a type of barn, which in case you didn't know dear renderer, is a type of building, which in case you didn't know dear renderer, is a man-made object...) The advantage of storing hierarchy with every single object is of course that you can use any number of hierarchies at the same time and even invent new ones for every object you map. But I don't assume that this would make things *easier* for the renderer ;-) Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ## N49°00.09' E008°23.33' ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Tagging hierarchies (was: RFC - lake)
On 13/01/2008, 80n [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jan 12, 2008 2:10 PM, Martijn van Oosterhout [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Let's say I'm looking at a satellite image and I see a body of water. Is it a lake/reservoir/dam/blah? I don't know. Yet the proposed scheme forces me to choose one with a 2/3 chance of being wrong. Maybe its a type that has no translation in English, then I'm really SOL. I suppose what I'm contesting is the statement that natural=water is deprecated. It covers all the impoartant properties needed for 99% of users. If somebody cares about details they can add them but I object to me being forced to care. I totally agree with this sentiment. It should be possible to be vague about something when tagging it. There are several vague tags that I really like and use frequently (natural=water, natural=grass being my two favorites) that allow you to describe what you see without having to worry about whether it's a lake a pond or a reservoir, or a park a green or a common. In many cases there's no way of knowing or finding out, so these vague tags are very useful. well, yes and no. if you want to be vague, there's no reason why we can't have a waterway=water tag. that way if the mapper doesn't know what *exact* type of water it is, they can still tag it under the water scheme, but not have to know anymore. at present, if they don't know what type of water it is, they have to tag it under a separate hierarchical tree, using a tag (natural) which overlaps with the water tag. the point i'm trying to get across, is that all water features, be they linear (rivers, canals, stream) or areas (lakes, reservoirs) or whatever would benefit from being under _one_ top-level tag, for consistency. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
